Origami

82 feet tall!

Event: FragFest 2022 Saturday, October 15, 2022 Time: 12:00 P.M. - 5:30 PM (Speaker starts at 2 PM) Where: North Bethesda Middle School, 8935 Bradmoor Drive, Bethesda, MD 20817 This meeting is open to (DUES-PAYING) MEMBERS ONLY*. * Join WAMAS at the door for $20.00 individual; $35.00 family = 1 year of membership, or save the hassle and Join Now. What is FragFest? Check out the FragFest FAQ here. Speaker: Nikki "ReefdUp" Bridges (Coral Rehabilitator, WAMAS Membership Director and owner/author of the blog CoralEverAfter.org) Topic: Scary Frights and Aquatic Ghouls (or "Pests in Your Reef Aquarium") Enter if you dare, into the world of what may be haunting your tank and lurking in the shadows of that beautiful new coral. The spiders are biting, the worms are crawling, and the slugs are leaving only skeletons behind. Join us for a truly spooktacular adventure! Bio: Nikki “ReefdUp” Bridges is a multidisciplinary systems engineer, military spouse, and mom to two amazing kids. She also happens to be WAMAS Membership Director. As the daughter of a wildlife rehabilitator and native plant rescuer, it is no surprise that her favorite part of reefkeeping became rescuing injured and diseased coral. Her passion for the last 14 years has been successfully rehabilitating over 250 injured/ diseased coral and fish. Her efforts have also included endangered species reef restoration in Curacao and marine debris removal in Honduras. To document these coral rehabilitation efforts, her blog, CoralEverAfter, covers novel techniques to save corals, one polyp at a time. In the process, she's identified and treated forscores of reef aquarium pests. She has over thirty years in the aquarium hobby and currently has a 120-gallon display reef, multiple quarantine/ treatment systems, and a Berghia nudibranch breeding system. Her favorite moments include defeating bizarre pests, eliminating diseases, successfully beating “brown jelly”, and still managing to safeguard her favorite rescues as she moves back and forth across the country. This passion likely stems from growing up in a family dedicated to rescuing wild animals and native plants. She has over thirty years in the aquarium hobby and currently has a 120 gallon mixed reef and four quarantine/treatment tanks – ask her what it is like to move that from state to state! ***** 12:00 PM Doors open to WAMAS members (only) 12:00 - 1:30 PM Socializing / Club business 12:30 - 1:30 PM Tank-drilling and fragging demos 1:30 - 1:50 PM Social Break 1:50 - 2:00 PM Club Business & Announcements 2:00 - 3:00 PM Speaker Nikki Bridges 3:00 - 3:30 PM Social Break 3:30 - 4:00 PM Raffle 4:00 - 5:30 PM Frag Giveaway (Yes, FREE frags!) 5:30 - 6:00 PM Cleanup Directions to North Bethesda Middle School: - NOTE: The school is just inside the north edge of the beltway near Old Georgetown Road. Here's a map from Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/bKz79Y9HmQF2 Special thanks to theses sponsors. Please support them & say thanks next time you shop with them. You can find their website address by visiting their forum or the sponsor page on the WAMAS website. WAMAS Platinum Sponsors - Air, Water & Ice - AquaHaus - Avast Marine - Blue Ribbon Koi - Capital Aquarium - ChemiPure (Boyd Enterprises) - Dr. Mac's Pacific East Aquaculture - FishnReef.com - Frank's Tanks - MASNA - Maxspect - Premium Aquatics - Puddle Aquatics - Reed Mariculture (Reef Nutrition) - Reef eScape - Reef2Rainforest Media (Coral Magazine) - SaltwaterAquarium.com - Supreme Reefs WAMAS Banner-Only Sponsors - Cobalt Aquatics - Jellyfish Art - Two Little Fishies 2022 virtual meeting support provided by Eureka Strategic Consulting, Discover the Extraordinary. *********** Give Aways! (One per member/family while supplies last) F-Aiptasia (donated by Frank's Tanks. 48 two-ounce bottles ($25 value) and 37 one-ounce ($14 value) bottles Raffle Prizes* - Maxspect Coral Fragging Kit consisting of one pair of Coral Pruners, one pair of Coral Tweezers, one 60 cm Coral Gripper, and one 120g jar of Coral Putty (epoxy). Kit has a $74 value. Ten chances to win! - $100 gift certificate donated by Reef Nerd Aquatics - 1 Aquabiomics aquarium microbiome test donated by Reef Nerd Aquatics ($99 value) - Reef Chemical Supplements kit comprising TLF KH Power, Calcium Pronto and pH Balance from SaltwaterAquarium.com ($53 value) - Kolar Labs Carbon & GFO package comprising 1/4 gallon of both GAC and GFO from SaltwaterAquarium.com ($60 value) - $150 gift certificate toward any Jellyfish Aquarium Kit at Jellyfishart.com. - Two Tropic Marin Test Kits (Ca/Mg and Alkalinity), donated by Nikki (ReefdUp) Bridges - 1 set of water quality products donated by Cobalt Aquatics, $147.66 value. - 13.5 ounce jar of Cobalt Aquatics Ultra Marine all-natural fish food, $43.40 value. Three chances to win! - From Boyd/Chemipure: 16-ounces of Vita Chem (vitamin supplement) plus one 2g vial of Chemiclean. $39 value. - From Boyd/Chemipure: Three 5-ounce size Chemi-Pure Blue, treats 35 gallon tanks for up to 1 month (3-month supply). $49.92 value - From Boyd/Chemipure: Three 11-ounce size Chemi-Pure Blue, treats 75-gallon tanks for up to 1 month (3-month supply). $83.31 value - From Boyd/Chemipure: 12 Chemi-Pure Blue nano, treats nano tanks for a 1 month (1 year supply). $45.26 value. Four chances to win!!! - One $100 livestock gift certificate and two $50 livestock gift certificates donated by Blue Ribbon Koi (so three chances to win)! - One Aussie Torch Coral donated by Vibrant Corals ($150-$200 value) - Clarisea SK-5000 automatic roller filter donated by Aquahaus! ($445 value!) More to be announced. Sponsors on-site (updated as needed): Reef Nerd Dr Mac's Pacific East Aquaculture AquaHaus Members selling on site (updated as needed): @copps @gws3 (pre-sales pickup) @ECreefer @Mr.Chalice @Readetome Watch this space for more information to be made available as it arrives!

We're so proud of WAMAS Membership Director, Nikki "ReefdUp" Bridges, speaking now for the first time at the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America! Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk

We're targeting opening the doors around noon and wrapping up by 5:30. It's still in early planning, though. Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk

Cool, Alan. Here's where your coral frag came from.

Where is the tank located? Fifteen or twenty years ago, the Durso and Stockman standpipes were among the quieter drains. However, they still made a bit of noise that could be distracting in some home locations. A quieter option is what's now known as the BeanAnimal overflow configuration that requires three drain lines: One in constant siphon (silent), another that's a trickle drain, and an emergency/backup drain.

When I started out in the hobby, I had a condy that would behave similarly. Sometimes short and fat, with a little bubbling and other times, long and sleek.

Hi. We're all over. We've got members in DC, VA, MD, WV and even a few in PA. We cover a pretty big region. Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk

Very, very cool!

Also picked up by Reef Bum. https://reefbum.com/news-events/20k-donated-by-wamas-to-living-coral-biobank/

Picked up by Practical Fishkeeping Magazine in the UK. https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/fishkeeping-news/wamas-donates-20k-to-the-living-coral-biobank-project/

I've also created a YouTube channel to host the video and uploaded it here.

Forrest, there's an old mesh-mod that was done on some old CPR-like skimmers back in the day to make them better at creating a finer bubble stream. At 29 gallons, have you considered managing nutrients with weekly water changes? You may not need a skimmer on a tank that small.

Nice, Lynn! Once you get it, let us know how you like it.

If you're a member of the WAMAS Facebook group, I just posted a video of today's presentation there. Dr. Miller's presentation begins 7 minutes 30 seconds in.

The range of options that you have to support the project can be found on this page, too: https://coralbiobank.org/donate

Replied via PM. You're welcome to bring a small tank. See the PM for groundrules/expectations, Curtis. We'd love to see Dr. Mac. Hilary tried reaching out but I don't believe that he replied.

Nice! Thanks for sharing. ReefEscape is a long, long-time WAMAS sponsor and their staff is top notch.

Also here in the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/04/great-barrier-reef-coral-recovery-climate-change/ However, note that the improvement is being seen in the northern and central parts of the reef. It looks like the south end is still losing coral cover. While we welcome the good news, with four mass bleaching events in just six years, we know that things can turn around quickly. It's a precarious situation.

DaJMasta and I have been in contact. He'll be at the meeting. Copps just messaged me, too. He'll be setting up a tank as well! A lot of good reasons to come to the meeting in-person on Saturday!

Don't forget the meeting this Saturday. Doors open to members at 1:00 PM and our speaker starts at 3 PM. SaltwaterAquarium.com just donated four 1/4-gallon (1.3#) jars of kolar labs nitrate-reducing biopellets to raffle! Also, DaJMasta and Copps will be on site selling.

Fans are great - both for cooling and to increase kalkwasser dosing if using that supplementation means. Your tabletop fan solution is a fine one - typically very affordable given the typical replacement cycle.

Fragfest is coming. Perfect time for trimming that unsightly growth!

I'd be cautious using it. If it's synthetic lava rock (made for commercial purposes), it may have additives that may leach and be toxic to your tank. However, a lot of natural lava rock is safe. However, you may have difficulty keeping it submerged because of trapped air in the rock.

Adding five $25 gift cards from Zack at Capital Aquarium to the raffle! Thanks, Zack!